This week on Points North, hear how Michigan hops farmers are struggling to keep up with the craft beer boom. Plus, a look ahead on the future of the Traverse City Pit Spitters baseball team.

Five years ago hops were in high demand in Michigan, so farmers started experimenting with the crop. However, as beer tastes changed and breweries went looking for the next new thing, many northern Michigan hop farmers have been unable to make ends meet.

For the past decade, Americans have been buying tart cherries from Turkey for cheap. Tart cherry farmers in Michigan say that’s hurting their bottom line. Now they’re hoping a new bill in Washington will balance the scales.

Stateside’s conversation with Andy Doctoroff, special projects adviser to Governor Rick Snyder and the point person on the Gordie Howe International Bridge.

Things appear to be moving ahead for construction on a new bridge between Detroit and Windsor. Last week, a consortium of builders was chosen to construct the Gordie Howe International Bridge.

However, trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada continue to rise, and the Moroun family — owners of the rival Ambassador Bridge — recently ran an oppositional ad on Fox and Friends asking President Trump to stop construction of the bridge.

In essays and interviews, we met Michigan inventors and entrepreneurs, teachers, artists, scientists, farmers, business people, experts, and just regular citizens who decided to think outside the box to make their state and their communities better.

President Trump's first State of the Union speech touched on Detroit’s auto industry. The president said that he “halted government mandates,” and his actions would “get the Motor City revving its engines once again.”

Daniel Howes, business columnist for The Detroit News, joined Stateside to talk about the truth of these claims and the landscape of the U.S. auto industry.

It’s fair to say that mothers need all the help they can get. Family and friends can step in, of course, but what about things like getting lactation advice, finding support groups, programs for kids, and most of all, finding other like-minded mothers?

Some metro areas seem to have lots of resources, but two Detroit residents connected over what they felt was a real lack of community in their city.

Kingsley is the latest Michigan town to give the green light to medical marijuana businesses. A vote by the village council this week clears the way for TheraCann, a Canadian company that wants to build a $20 million marijuana facility in the Kingsley Industry Park.

The building would be right next to Marc McKellar's house.

“Frankly, I’ve never been a proponent of marijuana … whatsoever," says McKellar. "I never contemplated it, really. Never thought about it.”

Stateside’s conversation with Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Amazon is in the process of building two distribution centers in Michigan. The online retail magnate has received millions in state money as an incentive to build, and hire, in the Great Lakes state. Yet, researchers at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance suggest Amazon’s impact on the overall economy destroys more jobs than it ever creates.